"At first he was battling in vain against de la Rosa, who was about three seconds quicker. Having ruined his tires in this battle, he was also overtaken by Heidfeld and to top it all, crashed into the BMW's rear to ruin his suspension.

I am sure Alonso would not have 'overreacted' in such a way. Instead of battling de la Rosa, he should have let him go and stayed focused on securing those points. There was enough time to even go into the pits for another tyre change and still make fourth place. Also his crash with Heidfeld was simply stupid. If you want to win the title, you can't do silly things like that."

Niki Lauda is the second driver, after Pedro de la Rosa, to state that Fernando Alonso would not have driven like Michael Schumacher did in Hungary. Perhaps not, but Alonso has certainly made his share of questionable moves in the past, including one which may have lead to Michael Schumacher's unquestionably fiery and stubborn temper this weekend. That incident in question is that of Fernando Alonso's slowing down in Free Practice 3 to force Michael to pass the Spaniard under a red flag and take a penalty as a result. Certainly this incident contributed to Schumacher's actions this weekend as it likely enraged him, though we would expect, as Niki Lauda suggests that the 7-Time World Champion would be smarter than to knock himself out of the race.

August 9, 2006